Samsung's smartwatches and the Wear OS platform went through some critical changes last year. The Korean company abandoned its smartwatch operating system, Tizen OS, in favor of a spot on Google's Wear OS development team and a lengthy exclusivity over Wear OS on the Galaxy Watch 3 smartwatch series. Which begs the question, what would happen if Google and Samsung joined forces and worked as one on Android OS and Galaxy devices?
Samsung is, by far, the most influential Android smartphone manufacturer. Google's own Pixel smartphones don't even come close to Samsung's Galaxy lineup in terms of global reach and market popularity. You could say that Google owes a large portion of its Android OS success to Samsung, seeing how the latter has become the face of Android hardware.
But hardware without software and vice versa doesn't really have any value. So, could an alliance between Samsung and Google unite the best of both worlds? And if so, why hasn't it happened already? What would the mobile world look like if Google and Samsung worked as one software and hardware giant?
What could Samsung and Google gain from an alliance such as this?
First of all, Google could earn a lot from an alliance with Samsung. It could use the company's global retail network and leverage Samsung's expertise in developing software for tablets and the DeX platform. It may get access to the best hardware available, assuming that Samsung would start releasing Galaxy devices running pure Android OS.
But this partnership would also probably imply that Samsung gives up on proprietary features like the Bixby Assistant and Galaxy Store in favor of services run by Google, such as the Google Assistant and the Play Store. So, it seems as though Google would gain many benefits while Samsung wouldn't really gain much in return. So how about sacrificing the Pixel line?
Well, if Google were to give up on its hardware, it could mean that more than a million Android smartphone users would switch to Galaxy devices. The partnership could also help Samsung offer the best-possible, highly-optimized Android OS experience available with or without One UI on top. And perhaps Samsung and Google working together could lead to exceptional Tensor chips, which Samsung could then use in its Galaxy smartphones and tablets instead of Exynos. In theory, Samsung and Google would finally be able to optimize the Android user experience at the factory level, on both software and hardware.
This alliance will probably never happen, but it's nonetheless interesting to think about. Whether for better or worse, the Android smartphone market would change drastically in the wake of a much closer Samsung-Google partnership. It could result in better phones for customers, but both Samsung and Google would probably have to sacrifice something for this to happen.
What's your take on this matter? Do you think Samsung and Google working as one would benefit the Android market? Could this alliance ever succeed? Or would this partnership bring about the end of Android and/or Samsung? Leave a comment below.
